Freshman Republican senators sent a letter to Governor Dayton, Speaker Daudt, and Majority Leader Gazelka today expressing disappointment in the lack of progress in budget negotiations. Since budget bills were passed by the House and Senate in early April, conference committees have been meeting to reconcile differences between the bills, but little has been accomplished toward the goal of setting three-way joint budget targets by the April 28 deadline.

“The people of Minnesota are tired of the gridlock and chaos of previous legislative sessions. House and Senate committees are hard at work finalizing bills, but it will be a waste of time if the Governor doesn’t engage in the conversation. We are encouraging all three leaders to negotiate a budget agreement by May 1 to show Minnesotans we’re ready to turn the page on the old way of doing things and finally get our work done early at the Capitol,” said Sen. Paul Anderson (R-Plymouth).

You can download the letter (PDF) here.

 

Governor Dayton, Speaker Daudt, and Majority Leader Gazelka,

As new members of the Minnesota Senate, we are writing today to advocate for a fresh approach to end of session negotiations that involves transparency, public input and frankly, does not rely on last minute pressure to get our work done. We observed the last few budget negotiations from the outside and have not been impressed with the process or the results.

Having been elected on a firm commitment of getting our legislative work completed on time, we believe great strides have been made in accomplishing this goal. For example, the Senate and House passed an entire state budget earlier than any session in recent memory and bipartisan budget conference committees have been working diligently to arrive at compromises that will benefit all Minnesotans.

We thank Governor Dayton for acknowledging our early committee work in his letter to legislative leaders on March 13, 2017:

“Thank you for setting deadlines that will require you to pass your omnibus budget bills out of committee by March 31, 2017. Those deadlines provide ample time to negotiate biennial budget bills to which we can all agree. To that end, I request that we set joint conference committee targets no later than Friday, April 28, 2017. That is two weeks after the Legislature returns from the spring recess and leaves more than three weeks to negotiate the details of the omnibus budget bills before your deadline to adjourn.”

However, over the past two weeks, we are concerned to see that the Dayton administration engage in outspoken criticism of our budget bills instead of demonstrating a willingness to work directly with policymakers. We are now hearing commissioners testify in conference committee they cannot negotiate directly on the Governor’s behalf.

Delays, posturing and partisan attacks are the characteristics of failed budget negotiations of the past and must be rejected in 2017 if we truly claim to listen to the public. The early success of bipartisan bills like tax conformity, premium relief, Sunday sales, and reinsurance was accomplished with a new sense of openness and optimism and should be a model for the state budget – we hope that this plea can return all of us to that manner of governing.

As such, we encourage all parties to engage in serious negotiations immediately and have three-way targets available by Monday, May 1, so we can do the work we have been elected to do. As new members of the legislature, we feel a sense of urgency to work through our differences and simply get things done.

Working together – all of us – in an open, transparent process, we can advance policy for the common good. Our policy differences do not, and should not, disqualify us from cooperation; instead, those differences should drive a substantive, passionate discussion from which compromise can grow. After all, Minnesotans are counting on us.

Respectfully,

Senator Mark Johnson, District 1

Senator Paul Utke, District 2

Senator Justin Eichorn, District 5

Senator Jerry Relph, District 14

Senator Andrew Mathews, District 15

Senator Andrew Lang, District 17

Senator Rich Draheim, District 20

Senator Mike Goggin, District 21

Senator John Jasinski, District 24

Senator Mark Koran, District 32

Senator Paul Anderson, District 44

Senator Scott Jensen, District 47